


The Trials of the Average British Swan

by americanjedi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, John might be a Saint, Kidnapping, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft and John being bro-married, Post-Reichenbach, Precious Indian Baby, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Sherlock apologises like only a Sherlock can, but not the kind of saint you can push over, mentions death of a young child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanjedi/pseuds/americanjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are people who always dream of home, of family, or children.  John has always been one of them.  And as Mycroft helps him deal with the death of Sherlock, and the loss of John's wife and child, then with Sherlock triumphant return, John realises Mycroft might feel the same.  Is there still room for hope?  A gift for the lovely Felicia for the dashcon auction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trials of the Average British Swan

“Sherlock,” John said, trying not to sew Sherlock’s head together too angrily. Tried not to think of 221B, of cases, of adventure. At least Sherlock had stopped immediately trying to convince John to come back again every time he saw him. Stopped trying to convince him to return to the life they had three years ago. To lay his heart out to be ripped to pieces. To face the hideous certainty of loss. “Sherlock there are paramedics here. You don’t even need me.”

Sherlock looked up at him, stubborn and haughtily unimpressed by John’s barely controlled rage.

It had been months since Sherlock had swanned back to life. Had appeared in 221B. Had asked with a strange indignation why the walls of his room had been painted baby blue with clouds as if he hadn’t been gone at all. As if his old room hadn’t become a closed up shrine for all the things John had loved and hoped for and lost.

For months after Sherlock had returned he kept up a persistent, irritating campaign to reinstate the crime fighting duo of Sherlock and John. There had been long weeks of Sherlock shifting through phases of gifts, cajoling, getting other people to cajole for him, once even flowers which John was fairly certain was more meant to be a desperate stab at humour than a misreading of social norms. But really, it was too much.

In a sort of vague dissociative way John understood why Sherlock did what he did. Risking his life to save his friends. It was in principle a brave thing, a good thing. But now-

After he had lost Mary… His wife, shimmering bright, brimming with good sense and laughter. They had met at a party Mycroft had dragged him to – Mycroft did a lot of that, keeping him fed and getting him out of the house – a benefits ball for veterans. Her father was a military man, as was her ex-fiancée before he had been caught having an affair with her best friend. Apparently her right hook was a thing of legend. And she believed him when he had said Sherlock was a genius.

Also, as she had drunkenly told a mildly constipated looking Mycroft at the more boisterous of their two engagement parties, she had thought John was hot. “Really, hot. Really, really, hot. He goes into the other room and he comes back and I think, how did you get hotter in the last five seconds? That is not a fair thing.” She also told Mycroft he was marvelous and wonderful but had an annoying face which sent John into giggles from where he’d fallen into her lap.

Mary wanted the same things John did. Family, children, Dr. Who marathons, and occasional bouts of adventure. Dreams that didn’t work out.

“Are you still living with Mycroft?” Sherlock asked, looking away. The side of his face had swollen beautifully and gone slightly multicolored, like a gas spill on asphalt. John resisted the urge to prod the bruise.

“For now.”

“Is he still encouraging you to avoid me?”

John sighed. “He’s encouraging me to be my own person for a little while. Can’t you understand that? That there are things I want other than experiments at three in the morning and crime scenes?”

Sherlock still wouldn’t look at him, didn’t say anything as John walked back to a magically appeared town car.

The worst part of it all was John had a theory he was a bit like a swan. Not pretty, nor elegant, but all the other swan things like being stroppy, belonging to the Queen, and mating for life. Despite what Mycroft delicately referred to as ‘his many dalliances’ John was fairly sure that as far as great love went Mary was it. After Mary was gone, it was like his third chance at happiness had evaporated, but Mycroft had been there, a rock to hold onto, a respite. Mary had told him once if she ever got tired of him she’d sell him to Mycroft. She had chased that with her lips against his neck as he cherished the feel of her stomach. As a doctor he had known she wasn’t far enough along to show yet, but as her husband, he was willing to come up with delusions of a baby bump.

It was easy for an older sibling to become offended, vindictive, vengeful. Especially one who raised a younger sibling. Because the older gave up their childhood, their normal life for the selfish pleasure of the younger. And then that younger child blossomed bright and resentful, crashed and blamed it on poor parenting. Not the youngest’s fault. None of the pain was ever their fault.

It was easy.

John had felt enough of it nipping at his heels when Harry whinged drunkenly it was ultimately John’s fault she had left her wife. He couldn’t stomach any of it from Sherlock.

Across the breakfast table, in the morning brightness, Mycroft was pretending to read the paper and eat toast. Well, he was almost certainly reading the paper.

“Do actually eat that,” John told him.

Rolling his eyes, Mycroft sighed, not like he did with Sherlock. This was comfortable, Mycroft found John comfortable, like flannel sheets, or a cozy jumper. Jammy dodgers when there’s no one to side eye how many are being eaten.

Mycroft had never become vindictive. He was a puzzle, a complicated fractal shifting around itself in shades of gingerbread brown, the shine of satin pocket handkerchiefs, the explosive power of his mind. And beneath that impossibility there was a highly controlled gentleness. Real feeling.

“Why didn’t you ever marry?” John asked him suddenly.

He froze with his mouth open, toast half way in.

“You’re not just The British Government you know. You’re nice too.”

“Very high praise,” Mycroft looked away.

“I’m serious, unless you had some sort of secret marriage to a government official somewhere.” He wouldn’t put it past Mycroft.

“Although I gave up a great many things for Sherlock, I always knew I wanted to work in the government,” he looked down, adjusting his serviette over his crossed legs, eyebrows holding the whole of his expression. “That it precisely suited me, and at the time I was young I could not be openly homosexual and have my work. And then Sherlock decided he wanted to have a few wild years, and well, taking care of him has been a full time job. And to be honest, I’ve boxed up those desires and hid them away, I’d rather not talk about them.”

Underneath the table John reached out to rest one sock foot on Mycroft’s shin.

The smile he got in return was tight, but it was close enough to forgiveness for now, he was hardly going to demand emotional comfort for saying something that even indirectly hurt Mycroft.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply and changed the subject. “Lestrade’s asked me to help him show off at the Yard rugby game.”

“Sherlock will be there.”

“I know,” John fought the urge to get up and start making tea. “But I can’t just actively avoid him, not like that, it doesn’t feel right.”

Weeks would pass with nothing more than: Working a child kidnapping case. Parents and child reunited. The tea cup gave it away. SH And: Young girl almost robbed of her inheritance. It was the biology professor. She’s now happily vacationing in France. SH And: I bought some milk. SH

Things meant to melt his heart. Cases Sherlock would have never taken before, far too boring to consider. John took a small bit of pleasure in finally getting Sherlock to do cases that would have taken days of bribes and wheedling before. The cases John would have begged Sherlock to take. It was as if the power balance had tipped a little, instead of John running one step behind, Sherlock finally had reason to think he might break someone’s heart by hying off to parts unknown on an adventure, leaving John to slowly collect graves. Because Sherlock thought, he’d always thought in the lines that he was the smartest and the best in any room at any time and all logic should bow to his. He’d sham at something else to get his way and then drop it as soon as he got what he want. He dropped John easily enough.

Two months after John moved back to 221B from where he was ‘just staying a night’ with Mycroft, he would be running to keep up again. And everything John wanted, the companion, the children (that poor little boy who was far too small, born far too early), the smell of home would be gone. John knew he couldn’t have both. 

Time passed the weather cooled, Mycroft caught laryngitis and proceeded to be the absolute worst patient in existence, rasping out orders to all and sundry, collecting a chest infection with a cough that put John in mind of plague victims until John had threatened to tie him to the bed in a slight panic. He didn’t like to think too hard on the way that panic had made Mycroft still, thoughtful and relatively obedient, gently holding John hand so John floated, pacified like a tugboat at dock. 

Mycroft recovered and went back to running the government and John went back to avoiding the vomit of small children.

And then John received a call from Lestrade. Sherlock had been caught on a serial child kidnapping case a shootout had started, they couldn’t get in contact with Sherlock and it was a hostage situation. Lestrade had already called Mycroft, but he thought he should call John too since Sherlock refused to have him taken off his emergency contact list.

Once he’d reached the crime scene and was able to get in thanks to Lestrade he searched frantic behind the Response Team until he had raced down a long storage hall, because of course Sherlock couldn’t be on the main floor of the building like everyone else. When he found him, for a moment his heart stuttered in his chest. The detective sprawled on his side, what was showing of that crisp white shirt was stained red with blood. The army medic in John was telling him it probably wasn’t fatal, a chest would produce far more blood than that. He knelt and gently rolled Sherlock onto his back. It was obvious Sherlock had been shot, but luckily the shot seemed to have hit Sherlock’s phone, tucked into his inside jacket pocket.

Bits of the phone had dug into the pale skin of Sherlock’s chest. But the bullet had been stopped. The wounds were mostly superficial. The enormity of Sherlock’s pupils spoke to his concussion, he gripped the sleeve of John’s coat to try to steady himself, collapsed forward into John’s chest. “John. John.”

“What were you thinking? Coming in here alone? You could have died!”

Sherlock’s hands, so large, gripped him, held him close. “I’ve already died before. And I’d die again. I’d die a million times, risk anything for you to come back. For you to look like you care.” He took a short trembling breath. “You always come. You’ll always come. You can’t blame me for just wanting you to be here again and caring that I’m alive.”

The heart in John’s chest gave a shudder of pain, of unfortunate certainty, his arms wrapped tight around Sherlock’s shoulders, nearly silent sobs against the nest of Sherlock’s hair, too terrible for tears. The smell of formaldehyde and sandalwood. Sherlock just gripped him, gripped him like a dying man gripping tight to his last burning strings of life, struggling to the last ounce of himself to hold onto the world.

“I need you John,” Sherlock whispered, barely audible against John’s chest. “It’s too loud without you. You always hold me steady. Don’t let me float too far away.”

John pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s forehead. “Alright. Alright. Okay.” 

“There’s a boy,” Sherlock said against John’s chest. “Somewhere down the hall. They dragged him past after they tried to shoot me.”

“Will you be alright if I leave you here?” John asked him.

“I won’t wander off.” 

Gently John leaned Sherlock back against the wall and picked up his gun again. “Give a shout if anyone shows up.” It was physically painful to lean Sherlock there, eyes half open, breath a tremulous thing.

With a nod John slipped away quietly, gun pointed down, unable to stop looking over his shoulder at Sherlock. There weren’t a lot of door to choose from, it was just a long L shaped hallway. He found himself at the doorway of a little bathroom, the door itself missing. It was little more than a little closet, starkly white, but for a startled little boy maybe eight standing on a step stool. In white socks, dark blue pajama pants and a white t-shirt that had been tucked in, far too little clothes for the weather.

The boy’s eyes were large, dark and wounded, like an animal too used to being kicked. Everything about him was neatly fastidious, nearly elegant in his neatness. John slowly leaned back, tucked his gun in the back of his jeans. Around one small wrist was a zip tie attaching him awkwardly somehow to the sink so he couldn’t get loose. Not for lack of trying. The soft skin of the boy’s wrist was turning red from his struggles.

“Hello,” John tried taking a half step forward. The boy was bent over the sink at an angle that couldn’t be comfortable. “I’m Dr. Watson, I’m here with the police.”

The boy froze, the red on his wrist dark and thick as it dried, two drops fell, obvious as wounds on the white enamel of the sink basin.

“You’re not a paramedic,” the boy answered. “Or a police officer.” John couldn’t help but be impressed, he was smart for his age – big words and able to reason enough to avoid naiveté. His soft round face pulled into an expression of determination. He spoke each word delicately, handling them like rosary beads.

“No, I’m a consultant,” John would have wiped the boy’s face for him, but his small features were so cautious, he wasn’t sure it would be a good idea. Keeping his hands up and away from his body he took another half step forward. “I’d like to get you loose. Can you tell me your name?” he pulled out his pocket handkerchief, a doctor’s best mate, and offered it. 

“Yes,” the boy replied softly. His voice was soft, padded, husky, as if he’d been crying. “My name’s Nadir.”

“I’m going to have to cut the zip tie with my knife,” John said, hands still visible. “I’m not going to hurt you. Will that be okay?”

“What’s going to happen? What’re you going to do?”

“You can go home, a police officer will take you home to your family.”

The boy unexpectedly started to hyperventilate. The only experience John had with children were kids that came into the clinic, he started to feel panic creeping up his ribs. “It’s okay, look at me. You’re safe. You’re in charge. I won’t come any closer than you like.”

“No, no.” The boy struggled again, hand forced up in supplication, face crumpling in the beginning of tears. A fawn caught in a wire fence. Mycroft appeared at John’s back, a line of wool and warmth. The working of his stained glass and clockwork brain took in the small lavatory, and the small boy and Mycroft’s hands gently shifted John to the side. He moved forward in a single fluid motion, kneeling beside the boy, voice moving in a low steady murmur that seemed to have the effect of hypnotizing the boy into stillness.

“Dr. Watson is a nice man. He wants to help you. We both want to help you. Will you let us do that?”

“I don’t want to go back,” Nadir said, wide eyes focused on Mycroft’s face. “They don’t want me there and they’ll send me somewhere else and no one wants to be friends with me.”

“Who’ll send you somewhere else?” Mycroft gently placed a large hand on the boy’s back. It was contrary to what anyone would expect to work, but then he was Mycroft. He nodded for John to some closer and cut the boy free.

“My foster parents. But they’re not really my parents. None of them were. Cause I’m weird and too smart and they don’t like me.”

“Well you seem very well mannered to me. My friend Dr. Watson is going to cut you free now,” Mycroft told him, tilting his head just enough to give John a cue to cut the zip tie in one neat cut.

Nadir didn’t resist as John gently freed his wrist and tied his handkerchief around the worried skin. “There you go,” John told him anxiously. Just as Mycroft began to stand Nadir launched himself forward, burying his face in bespoke and beginning to weep.

Now it was Mycroft who didn’t seem to know what to do. He remained frozen, kneeling. There was a terrified slant to Mycroft’s shoulders that John recognised from the mirror, John had worn the same worry often enough for it to be familiar, although it was a terror that was ripped away too soon. Mycroft was thinking like a father without realizing it. When Mycroft looked up at John the doctor took mercy, “I’ll go make sure Sherlock hasn’t tried to wander off, why don’t you take Nadir to the paramedics?”

John wasn’t entirely surprised when Mycroft texted that he was staying at hospital with Nadir. As for himself, he was curled up in his and Mary’s bed at 221B.

When Mycroft and John met for their weekly lunch the next day, John was watching the way Mycroft kept not quite checking his phone.

“I’m never going to have another child,” John told Mycroft. Watching the way he froze. Watching him turn from Mycroft the comfortable to Mycroft the calculating. According to some John had never had a son, had nothing more than a possibility. But for the sake of Mary’s memory, that child would exist in his mind, never to be pried from his desperate hands. “And I can pretend all I want, but I’m never going to stop caring about Sherlock, never stop running to his rescue. And neither will you.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Mycroft tried to joke, but the delivery didn’t quite work, his mind was working in a different headspace.

“I’m telling you not to give up your chance at a son.”

Mycroft put down his spoon and looked out over the private dining room.

When John put his hand over Mycroft’s it was trembling.

“Could anyone love a boy like him better than you?”

“Sherlock was-”

“Not nearly that neat or polite at his age,” John interrupted him. “And your life doesn’t have to revolve around Sherlock’s. Leave that to me. It’s not a burden to me anymore. It’s okay to do something for yourself. I’ll drop by from time to time. And with your brother I’m certainly used to midnight phone calls, if you just want an over the phone co-parent.” John tried to smile. “It’s not just you anymore. That’s how this works, we’re in this together. You’re stuck with me now.”

Mycroft closed his eyes. His fingers tightened around John’s.

“Could anyone love him better than you?”

“I wouldn’t want them to,” Mycroft whispered.


End file.
